"American climate science is quite clear: Superstorm Sandy was not a freak occurrence, a "once in a generation event" as the US media has misleadingly labelled it. It is the forerunner of many such events,"

What, like Hurricane Carol, Hurricane Donna, Hurricane Edna, Ione, Helene, Gracie, Audrey? Have you ever heard of these? Are you aware that they are the names of hurricanes which made landfall in the US between 1954 and 1960, in the second-worst decade for recorded hurricanes ever -- and long before any AGW nonsense reared its head? Do you know that, unlike these, Sandy was already downgraded to a storm before it made landfall?

Here are the official US figures for hurricane strikes: read them and ask yourself: 'Why have people lied to me?'.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml

AGW hysteria is clearly moving into a new phase, where it's not enought to just be wilfully ignorant about science -- you have to be wilfully ignorant about history as well.

And this might also be of interest:

http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2012/11/there-will-be-fewer-sandy-like-storms-in-the-future/

<<"American climate science is quite clear: Superstorm Sandy was not a freak occurrence”…What, like Hurricane Carol, Hurricane Donna, Hurricane Edna, Ione, Helene, Gracie, Audrey…[which] made landfall in the US between 1954 and 1960, in the second-worst decade for recorded hurricanes ever -- and long before any AGW>>

You can’t say things like that, Johj.

Haven’t you heard (the hype) –hurricane Sandy was the biggest and baddest and worstest, EVER.

It will only be bettered, sorry, WORSTED, by the next one to come along.

There will not be another one like Sandy again. Probably correct, they will be bigger and bigger.

The Mayan Prophesy predicted this you know. We're doomed. I'm going out to expend some serious carbon while I can.

Julian,

Others have already wondered why you haven't been looking at the history of these storms, and the relative drought of them in the past few years. Your piece here is extraordinarily one-sided.

See my post this morning, on the same subject: www.donaitkin.com

Evolution in action.
The human virus marches on...........

Don Aitkin,

We may be looking at the increased frequency of storms such as this -

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S32/98/37G63/

"Storm of the century" may become storm of the decade."

Don: the article wasn't about the frequency of hurricanes. It was about the failure of the world's biggest democracy to discuss its the amount of energy it releases that is enhancing all extreme weather events. It was about its failure to understand that its present policies will bring larger impacts, the more heat energy is released into the atmosphere.

Julian,

You wrote this: 'American climate science is quite clear: Superstorm Sandy was not a freak occurrence, a "once in a generation event" as the US media has misleadingly labelled it. It is the forerunner of many such events...'

Yet the evidence is almost exactly the opposite: there has been a lull in hurricanes, and those in the past were worse. You jump to the assumption that Sandy was caused by AGW, but neither climate science nor the IPCC itself make this claim.

If you haven't yet done so, read Robert Pielke Jnr's piece in the Wall Street Journal, or even my own piece this morning.

<< It was about the failure of the world's biggest democracy to discuss its the amount of energy it releases that is enhancing all extreme weather events. It was about its failure to understand that its present policies will bring larger impacts, the more heat energy is released into the atmosphere>>

“ CO2 emissions in the US have dropped “a lot” (7.7% since 2006, and 1.9% last year alone). The International Energy Agency writes, “US emissions have now fallen by 430 Mt (7.7%) since 2006, the largest reduction of all countries or regions.”
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/07/20/whats-the-deal-with-the-us-leading-the-world-in-co2-emissions-cuts-will-it-continue/

No, it's more about how much the UN and its affiliates can extort from the US.

This article is despicable, US bashing, AGW scare-mongering junk.

As I have said before if AGW were happening hurricanes and extreme weather generally, would decrease in intensity; the reason for this is that energy gradients would decrease if warming were occuring; even the IPCC shows this with this A1B projection based on GISS's increased temperature scenario under a business as usual case:

http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/files/2012/11/cc4.jpg

The history of hurricane events in the Sandy area also shows that Sandy was not exceptional:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/images/tracks/majors_1951_1960.jpg

Sandy was not even a category 1 hurricane yet here we have this author claiming Sandy is indicative of a worsening of the climate.

AGW is not a science it is obviously a belief system and the predictions and pronouncements which flow from AGW should be given the same respect as the rantings of those deluded specimens who stand on street corners bellowing about the end of the world.

J.C., America can't afford to fix up or build the infrastructure that is needed to counter extreme weather events. All its spare cash is directed into preparing for more wars including the nuclear one that will visit Earth in the next few years.

Also, most Americans would prefer materialism to continue rather than have to give up their electronic gimmicks, fast food, and Fux News.

Do not look to the U.S. for leadership. It is involved in trying to achieve global domination. It can't do two things at the same time!

There is no question about the fact that Sandy was human-induced (as well as by some butterfly in Brazil, but that's besides the point).

The question is just why should it bother us if some Americans are being punished, as should, for their sins!

As the author wrote with horror, "even disrupting the presidential election schedule" - tut tut!

I like the bit about "the drills continue to hammer into America's tar sands, oil shale and gas deposits, petroleum explorers probe the melting Arctic, and coal miners slice the tops off mountains".
And I especially like the idea of the extraction industries following their own devastation into the sea-beds under the now disappearing Arctic ice to find more hydrocarbons to feed the loop.
I might add that the whole of the Middle East has been set ablaze by there serial pillagers.
Is it true that the US military is the largest single user of hydrocarbons in the world today? And if it is, is there any wonder that they continue to rape and pillage all the world for their fuel?
Go figure - that's what militaries do. And has there ever been a military that listened to voices saying, "Escuse me, but you guys are so on the wrong track."

Simply described, humankind is limiting its own capacity to survive and to prosper on this, our only earth. We are responsible collectively for trapping of heat in the air and oceans and for the lesser evil, actual emission of waste heat to the atmosphere. These very clearly exacerbate extreme climate events - this isn't determined by counting lists of cyclones, it is physics.

EVERY cyclone formed over warmer water, will be stronger than were it formed over cooler water, bringing winds of higher velocities and rain of greater intensity and higher storm surges.

EVERY rise in ocean levels increases the risk that the next storm will flood lowlying areas, wash away beach houses, flood transport routes and disrupt power supplies.

Yet still neanderthals attempt to suppress action based on these inescapable truths. The time for climate debate has passed. The side which calls for a yes/no debate has deluded itself into believing that smart words will defend against the demonstrated reality of climate physics. It cannot and will not. If there is to be a debate, it must be about: How fast? What changes are urgent? How do the inhabitants of this world cooperate?

As for SPQR's assertion that the UN's mission is to extort money from USA: If only USA paid in full the bills it is currently ignoring! USA takes the cake for pretending that its laws have global effect, while simultaneously opting out of every international law or treaty which its captains of industry believe not to be in the interests of US commerce. Its military arms have a similar approach to world peace, the path to which runs, it seems, through fostering of continuous warfare.

It's time for peace studies and peace initiatives to be better funded than military hardware, military training and actual warfare.

The alternative is endless wars, avoidance of coordinated international action for the common good, resource depletion, economic collapse, degenerating global climate and rising sea levels.

Enough of this useless non-debate. Let's address useful stuff, like considering the issues which will set the stage for the next thousand years.

Dear John,

<<Yet still neanderthals attempt to suppress action>>

Are you trying to insult the neanderthals, or have they ever suppressed any similar action?

<<The alternative is endless wars, avoidance of coordinated international action for the common good, resource depletion, economic collapse, degenerating global climate and rising sea levels.>>

Sounds charming, when compared to the state-control measures suggested by AGW proponents!

Your idea of "common good" has nothing good in it - better be a neandarthal, thanks!

@JohnBennetts: "Simply described, humankind is limiting its own capacity to survive and to prosper on this, our only earth."

Funny, then, isn't it, how there are more people living better, longer, healthier, more prosperous lives at this point in history than at any time in the past? Largely because of the use of fossil fuels, but also through other innovations that have all come from the developed Western nations that you want to cripple and destroy. How many Indians and Chinese are there who would not be alive today without Western technology and Western medicine? Do you really think they are going to go along with a crazy plan to hamstring the societies which produce the technology which keeps them healthy, housed and fed?

Here's a Romney supporter (Brig, Gen - served in Iraq) criticising the Republican nominee's proposed decision to okay the Keystone pipeline into the US from Alberta's tar sands.

http://huffingtonpost.com/steven-m-anderson/keystone-pipeline_b_2069304.html

Yuyutsu,

"...better to be a neanderthal,thanks."

On the question of survival of individual species, it's probably better to be stupid than smart - as in bacteria and beetles.

If being smart sees you defiling your environment, you end up in the long run living as if you were stupid.

Intelligence with a lack of wisdom and foresight invariably amounts to "mega-stupid".

Dear Poirot,

I am not defiling my environment more than you are, nor would a neanderthal.

Anyway, my point was that I rather live and die as a neanderthal, subject to the elements of nature but free from the control of men and his states. I don't believe at all that those promoting AGW action do so for genuine care for the environment - they do it for love of control, with the environment being used merely as pretext.

I would naturally care for the environment, I actually used to and I didn't need any prodding, but with those guys around who seek to control my life, all I can feel is - "it's THEIR environment, so stuff them and their environment, let it all go up in flames!"

Just to clarify:

* temperatures have risen by about 1.8-2 degrees in the last century. Is that right ?

* Sea-levels have risen by about two inches in the last century. Right ? Wrong ?

* world temperatures have not risen significantly over the last fifteen years. Is this true or false ?

* Australia has experienced many cyclones over the past 150 years with the ferocity of Cyclone Tracey: Darwin itself has been wiped out at least twice before Tracey, in (I could be wrong, somebody would know much better than me) the 1880s, and in about 1920. Cairns and Townsville have been wiped out before by cyclones. True ? False ?

NOTE: no person was insulted or ad hominemed in making this contribution.

Sorry, I'm so scatter-brained in my old age, I forgot to mention the rapidly growing effects of urban spaces as heat island. Michael Mobbs is on the radio at the moment, talking about greening out cities, and it struck me that the total size of urban populations in the world has probably doubled every thirty years since the War, and the use of air-conditionning etc. has risen even faster, along with affluence.

So besides CO2 production, (and please excuse my ignorance) how much does the urban-heat-island-effect boost world temperatures ?

Joe

Ocean temperature is rising, giving up co2.
More ice melt than ever, especially in the northern hemisphere.
Heavier flooding around the globe.
More ferocious storms and cyclones.
Nature has been compromised, and needs to be repaired.

I must give Julian some due here.

I have always felt [a studied opinion actually] that hydrocarbons, [& fire wood], do more heating of the environment while they are burning, than their product CO2 ever does, in the air. The CO2 merely displaces water vapor which is a more effective radiation absorber anyway.

Of course the total heat emitted is still so small, & so quickly dissipated as to be of not much interest anyway.

"temperatures have risen by about 1.8-2 degrees in the last century. Is that right ?"

No:

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:24/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend

The increase is about 0.7C

"Sea-levels have risen by about two inches in the last century. Right ? Wrong ?"

Sea level rose 1.7mm/y during the 20thC:

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/jcoastres-d-10-00157-1.pdf

That's about 6.7 inches.

"world temperatures have not risen significantly over the last fifteen years. Is this true or false ?"

True. In fact they have probably fallen.

While the author makes a cogent case backed by credible argument? He seems to miss the most glaring reasons for the bemoaned inactivity?
Namely, the record debt burdened American economy, teetering on the brink of collapse and a new and possibly more disastrous Great Depression?
Almost a gold plated guaranteed event, if Corp raider Romney gets in and proceeds to asset strip and downsize the American economy, with the instrument of an asinine austerity program?
Suppose we were to accept all the postulations and prognostications inherent in the article, and I do?
And proceed with the precautionary principle, which I advocate!
We still need a growing and robustly performing economy to be able to transition towards an endlessly sustainable economy, that actually "serves" all of us, rather than just a privileged few, or just the environment, as inherently important as that is!
What we need now are credible workable solutions, rather than a restating or reworking of the inordinately obvious!
The very best solutions, will be ones that walk out the door and gain universal acceptance, but particularly amongst the poor and or emerging economies; and indeed, create jobs and wealth creation opportunities, as they're rolled out!
One can flog an already seriously overloaded donkey all day, and only ever succeed in driving him to his knees, when what is needed is a lightening of the load and a few tempting carrots!
There are eminently affordable solutions out there, which when rather than if adopted, will quite dramatically reduce the cost of energy and the amount of carbon, we add to the atmosphere!
We just need to remove the ideological blinkers, get smarter and less uncompromising, not LOUDER!?
Rhrosty.

@John Bennett,

<<As for SPQR's assertion that the UN's mission is to extort money from USA: If only USA paid in full the bills it is currently ignoring! >>

Err... tell us Mr Bennett, what does the USA’s *FAIR* share of UN funding come to?

Ahhh, look, as it is not doubt no where to be found on the Greenpeace queue cards you’ve been reading from –I’ll help you out:

“The U.S. has been the largest financial supporter of the U.N. since the organization’s founding in 1945. The U.S. is currently assessed 22 percent of the U.N. regular budget and more than 27 percent of the U.N. peacekeeping budget.”
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/08/us-funding-of-the-united-nations-reaches-all-time-high

No wonder they’re disputing the charge!

UN dues must be worked out according to one of those nifty IPCC/AGW percapita formulas

Dear Loudmouth,

Facts are facts, but the question is what you do with them.

For the government and their allies, these facts are not a reason to worry (though that's what they will tell you if you care to believe them), but an opportunity to rejoice:

* temperatures have risen - bring in more taxes.
* Sea-levels have risen - bring in more building regulations.
* world temperatures have risen - fly over to extravagant international conferences (on tax-payer money, burning lots of carbon on the way).
* Australia has experienced many cyclones - make further health & safety regulations.

As for those facts (which Cohenite and others dispute, but I won't go into that, so let's assume for argument's sake are correct), this is just the beginning of enquiry - the next steps are to ask:

* If so, are those events bad?
* If so, are they man-made?
* If so, do humans not deserve those events?
* If so, can humans do anything serious about it?
* If so, would the cost of trying to avert those events not be higher than accepting the facts?

In any case, I used to side with the ecology, I did my best to help the environment without being asked, but now that the government uses it for its own power and glory, I find myself on the opposite side, and the loser is... the environment of course!

Julian, you had no hope at all to try and cover these issues here, this site has been taken over by the same types for people you are referring to in the US.

Note the first poster, he probably has no science training at all, yet he believes that anybody who believes humans are causing the climate to change are ignorant of science. Let's cover that again, most of the world’s scientist are ignorant about science and Jon J isn't proof is in the form of a link to a blog. There is another place you hear comments like that.. Creation science, another right wing attack on reality.

Julian you should turn your focus closer to home and try to understand what has gone wrong with the conservative movement here. The moderates on the right are being drowned out by the tea party types here as well.

Yes, i agree with the sentiment of this article.

All Western democracies, along with all other societies, must do much more to devise a new policy mix that has less to do with more of the same emphasis on economic growth with not enough attention given to environmental implications.

Of course, this is easier said than done, but that is another story.

Yuyutsu,

"....nor would a neanderthal."

I beg to differ, in that a neanderthal would act on his environment in a way that was relatively sustainable and certainly would have his footprint contained simply because his evolutionary stage didn't allow for a greater technological footprint. He would also probably be far more mindful of any propensity to overuse and abuse scarce resources and his immediate surroundings because his life and daily experience were tied in so closely with the realities of life and death.

Remember these pics of China's pollution?
http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/

The buck doesn't stop with China as far as ocean and airborne pollutants go. The Western world has assigned China the factory of the world. China makes all the cheap stuff so we can go out and buy stuff that, by and large, we don't "need" - or at least we don't need quite so much of it. Cheap imports from China have helped to keep the US economy afloat.

We are voracious - and we have no idea how to contain our appetites.

"Note the first poster, he probably has no science training at all, yet he believes that anybody who believes humans are causing the climate to change are ignorant of science."

Kenny, if you're referring to me, I hold two science degrees and have worked in University science departments for several years. But that's not really relevant, because despite that I was a believer in AGW up until about six years ago, when I actually started to get interested in the arguments. My scientific training made it a little bit easier to see the gaping flaws in the AGW position, but it's not hard: anyone can do it.

All you have to do is stop pretending you're the brave hero of a disaster movie, fighting the wicked denier conspiracy, and look at the actual facts instead.

I have one question I pose to both parties found in the postings above.
If the climate is not warming, why is the Arctic sea-ice melting?

'Climate change, not terrorism, or the Global Financial Crisis is the true test of the resilience, durability and quality of American democracy in this generation and whether it can adapt to the changed conditions of the 21st century or is fated, as Toynbee has it, to die by its own hand, unable to rationally face, understand and deal with the great challenges which confront it. '

Was this a misquote from Kevein Rudds greatest moral challenge of the century. Hilarous if it was not so sad that the warmist religion plays on peoples ignorance and tradegy in order to push their own agendas. The arrogance of man to think he can determine climate is astounding. The moral issues are not about improving man's comfort and extending their life but ignoring their Creator and Saviour. Warmist need to take the higher moral ground but the history of their High Priests expose their total hypocrisy.

Anyone who links Sandy to climate change has their feet planted firmly in mid air.

There is no evidence that human emissions have any but a negligible effect on climate.

If you have any science which shows otherwise, Julian, then produce it.

Human emissions contribute 3% of the CO2 in the atmosphere, and there is a 10% natural variation, so the human effect is undetectable.

Developed countries are net absorbers of CO2. They absorb more than they emit.

To underline the fact that they have no science to back their proposition, the IPCC stated that it is 95% certain that human emissions affect climate. Since that announcement, five years ago, it has become clear that it is 99% certain that they do not.

A few years ago, Julian, you would have had some credibility for your nonsense, but those days have gone. Real science has overtaken people like you.

There is a great article today about the demise of your flawed and baseless faith:

“Regrettably for the global warming religion, its predictions have started to appear shaky, and the converts, many of whom have lost their jobs and much of their wealth, are losing faith. Worse, heretic scientists have been giving the lie to many of the prophecies described in the IPCC bible.”

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/losing-their-religion-as-evidence-cools-off/story-e6frgd0x-1226510184533

Thanks Cohenite, 0.7 degrees in 100 years.

And that 0.7-degree rise has been responsible for the 6.7 inches rise in sea-level ? I wonder how much of that 0.7-degree rise can be attributed to the urban-heat-island effect ? Or are there a multitude of other factors ?

Of course, some coast-lines are rising all the time (the Australian east coast), and some are falling all the time (Bangla Desh), so it's a mixed bag.

I guess the thing that bugs me about a focus on AGW is that it allows capitalism to take its eye - or rather, our eye - off the environment, and how it is being trashed. We get so spooked about one dodgy factor, and neglect the rest. All part of their devilishly cunning plan, I suspect.

"If the climate is not warming, why is the Arctic sea-ice melting?"

It's not; by historical levels the Arctic melt is small; for some calculations of the melt, see:

http://notrickszone.com/2012/08/27/oh-no-six-thousandths-of-one-percent-0-006-more-of-the-worlds-ice-melted-this-summer/

Historical perspective:

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n9/full/ngeo1557.html

There is nothing unusual happening in the Arctic yet the usual idiots, like vultures, will jump on anything to 'prove' their religion of AGW.

IT'S GLOBAL WARMING STUPID

Front cover of Bloomberg Business Week, one of the most influential business magazines in the USA and not really a hotbed of leftie airheads.

See:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v280/pgregory/climate%20stuff/image2.png

See story here:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-01/its-global-warming-stupid#r=hpt-ls

>>Yes, yes, it’s unsophisticated to blame any given storm on climate change. Men and women in white lab coats tell us—and they’re right—that many factors contribute to each severe weather episode. Climate deniers exploit scientific complexity to avoid any discussion at all.

Clarity, however, is not beyond reach. Hurricane Sandy demands it: At least 40 U.S. deaths. Economic losses expected to climb as high as $50 billion. Eight million homes without power. Hundreds of thousands of people evacuated. More than 15,000 flights grounded. Factories, stores, and hospitals shut. Lower Manhattan dark, silent, and underwater.

[...]

In an Oct. 30 blog post, Mark Fischetti of Scientific American took a spin through Ph.D.-land and found more and more credentialed experts willing to shrug off the climate caveats. The broadening consensus: “Climate change amps up other basic factors that contribute to big storms. For example, the oceans have warmed, providing more energy for storms. And the Earth’s atmosphere has warmed, so it retains more moisture, which is drawn into storms and is then dumped on us.” Even those of us who are science-phobic can get the gist of that.>>

Poirot:
"We are voracious - and we have no idea how to contain our appetites".

Worse than that, our economic prosperity (such as it is) demands the glut is not merely maintained, but increased:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aczPDGC3f8U
Mr Creasote seems much less far fetched these days.
The only way to address AGW is to deny ourselves (and cripple the economy), all else is magic pudding. Either consumerism dies or we do, and there's nothing democratic capitalism can do about that.

So the Arctic sea-ice is not melting. That's good to know.
All those photos must be from Photoshop.
Glad to get that cleared up. Such a relief!

This climate change debate drives me nuts, it's like the new religion, it's based on faith not science.

So the ice caps are melting? so it must be mans activities? correlation is not causation! have you considered the possibility of increased polar winds leading to a high melt rate?

Any one that argues against the fact of climate change is an idiot. The climate has always changed, the global climate is a hugely complex dynamic entity. The argument is so badly played out in the media, the issue is anthropogenic climate change. To what extent are the activities of man contributing, if a all, to the observed climate change. I see this as part human psychology, we can't accept that we are not masters of the universe, we can't accept that we humans are puppets on a string when it comes to mother nature. If the sun doesn't come up tomorrow we are dead and there is nothing we can do about it.

"All those photos must be from Photoshop.
Glad to get that cleared up. Such a relief!"

It wouldn't surprise me in the least; AGW is a scam from top to bottom and its advocates have been lying from day one.

Anyway why don't you go up to the Arctic and check yourself; this mob of fools had a go:

http://jennifermarohasy.com/2009/05/arctic-activists-to-be-rescued/

And these idiots:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/whod_have_thought_thered_still_be_ice_at_the_arctic/

You should feel right at home.

Got to admire your swagger, cohenite.

I've yet to hear of a climate scientist who claimed to be as sure of the science as you are in your denial of it.

Message there somewhere, methinks.

A look at the battle lines here is very instructive. On one side you’ve got a sober group who accept that climate change happens –actually it happens all the time –but dispute the hype that is often written-up as evidence of climate change and dispute it is all due to anthropogenic CO2.

And on the other, AGW–is-real side, you’ve got two broad groups.The party faithful who believe in AGW , ‘cause it's party policy to believe it. Mind you, if their party changed policy tomorrow they'd be equally agen it . They usually can be distinguished by having some strange number associated with their names (perhaps their attempt to count) like 579 or 1405. And another sub-group who might best be described as neo-luddites (whom I will not name, lest I embarrass them). This sub-group are on a personal jihad against capitalism. They believe capitalist robber barons rule the world (the Green Revolution was a giant conspiracy by those robber barons to defraud the poor, and Craig Thompson is a martyr) And the world would be a much better place if the UN took over.

@halduell: "So the Arctic sea-ice is not melting. That's good to know."

The Arctic sea-ice is back to where it was this time last year. It's low by historical standards, but as others have pointed out, our records only extend back about thirty years.

But if the loss in Arctic sea-ice is due to GLOBAL warming -- remember that word -- how do you explain the fact that Antarctic sea-ice is at record levels? Global = world-wide, right? Or didn't the South Pole get the memo?

Julian, human emissions of CO2 are asserted by the backers of your nonsense to affect climate.
Japan sent up a satellite to gather information on CO2. They seem not to be bound by Political Correctness and published the truth about the results.
The West absorbs more CO2 than it emits.
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had long claimed that, ‘there is a consensus among scientists that manmade emissions of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide (CO2), are harming global climate’.
The Japanese satellite map shows regions coloured the deepest leaf green (net absorbers of CO2) being predominantly those developed nations of Europe and North America; thus indicating built up environments absorbed more CO2 than they emitted into the atmosphere.”
http://co2insanity.com/2011/11/15/new-satellite-data-contradicts-carbon-dioxide-climate-theory/

This information has been available since October 2011, but there is no change in the misinformation of the AGW fraud backers.

No wonder it is impossible to measure any effect of human emissions on climate. We are net absorbers.

It also seems impossible to stop the false assertions of AGW by fraud backers like you, Julian.

@ Jon J
About the Antarctic ice, and isn't the Ross Ice Shelf showing signs of melting, and don't I remember a story a year or two back about a big piece of it breaking off?
And wasn't there a story recently about the landing strip used by Australia under threat due to melt?
While I suspect our global seven billion population's increased use of hydrocarbons, I have no firm opinion of what is causing the increase melt at both our poles. But there are simply too many stories going around for me to think we can easily discount them all.
Maybe none of the stories are true, and only alarmists repeat them. But if that's the case, why are the hydrocarbon extraction industries tripping over each other staking claims on the recently exposed Arctic sea bed?

Leo Lane's last post gives the impression that Japanese scientists dissent from the consensus that AGW is real.

This is incorrect. Like virtually all the world's peak scientific bodies, the leadership of the Science Council of Japan harbours no illusions about the reality of AGW.

You can access one of their position papers in English here:

http://www.scj.go.jp/ja/info/kohyo/pdf/kohyo-21-h72e-1.pdf

Excerpt:

>>Climate change caused by human activities is already taking place and it is almost certain
that this change is having various effects on the world's ecosystems and human society.
However, major uncertainties still exist in regard to the details of such change and its
effects and the prediction of long-term climate change, all of which form the basis for
policy decisions. In view of the severity of the predicted conditions likely to emerge, the
formulation and implementation of damage mitigation measures, including preventive
measures, is essential to prevent an increase of the damage caused by an unanticipated
situation almost corresponding to the upper limit of the prediction range, while taking the
balance between the economy and the environment into consideration.>>

(Well. It's a translation from Japanese so it's a bit hard to follow but the gist is plain enough)

Almost all the world's actual climatologists agree that AGW is real.

Almost all the world's peak scientific bodies have issued statements warning their governments of the dangers that AGW poses. These include, in addition to the Science Council of Japan, Britain's Royal Society, America's National Academy of Scientists and Germany's Max Planck Institute.

This is as close to a scientific consensus as you can get. (Consensus does not mean unanimity)

You may dissent from the scientific consensus. That is your right.

But if you claim the scientific consensus does not exist you are misleading your readers.

Steven,

"...damage mitigation measures..."

Like this, for instance.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/31/world/asia/japan-flood-tunnel/index.html?hpt=hp_c4

SPQR,

Us so-called "Luddites" are in favour of intelligent beings implementing wisdom above and beyond greed and rapaciousness.

Poirot

In the end most people will believe what they want to believe and find rationalisations that bolster their beliefs. Thus was it ever. We see this in evolution-denial, in Muslim scientists who claim to have found "scientific miracles" in the koran and in AGW.

There are, as the Japanese statement acknowledges, "major uncertainties."

There is, for example, an outside chance that a certain amount of global warming will have an overall benign effect increasing rainfall and opening up new areas for agriculture.

There is also an outside chance that AGW will reach a tipping point in which we experience a global calamity within a few short decades, one in which billions die.

There is, for now, just no way of knowing.

But the reality of AGW, for good or ill, is not seriously in doubt.

Steven how can you possibly say "But the reality of AGW, for good or ill, is not seriously in doubt", when the promoters of the scam have had to cheat, lie, & "hide the decline", to cover up their complete lack of evidence?

After tens of billions of dollars wasted on their "research" you would think they had something better than the continual "correction" of temperature records to show, to prove their case.

It is unfortunate that we have so many academics, without the math to work out the change from $10 for a bus ticket, now have their credability invested in such a scam

Dear Poirot,

<<I beg to differ, in that a neanderthal would act on his environment in a way that was relatively sustainable and certainly would have his footprint contained simply because his evolutionary stage didn't allow for a greater technological footprint...>>

What are you differing about then? I think we are at perfect agreement. It is just what I meant when I wrote:
"I am not defiling my environment more than you are, nor would a neanderthal."

- nor would a neanderthal defile his environment more than you (and me), so where's the difference?

Stevenmeyer, there is no lack of false assertion that AGW is real. Even the Royal Society, at a time when there was not one climate scientist on its governing committee came out with the false assertion that human emissions contribute to climate.

As Nigel Calder has said, the Royal Society will join all the other backers of AGW in the Hall of Shame, when political correctness is overcome, and the truth is acknowledged about this scientific scandal.

The simple fact is that there is no scientific basis for the assertion.

You have been asked before, on OLO, to produce any such evidence, and you have failed to do so because there is no such science.

Climate follows natural cycles, and despite all the bluster by the AGW fraud backers, human emissions have not been shown to have any measurable effect.

You have been asked before why you support the AGW fraud, and you have no answer, but to point to other baseless statements

Hasbeen wrote:

>>the promoters of the scam have had to cheat, lie, & "hide the decline", to cover up their complete lack of evidence?>>

I deplore all cheating in science and AGW has had more than its fair share by protagonists on BOTH SIDES. Phil Jones, head of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia should have been sacked in the wake of the "climategate" revelations and Ian Plimer should be stripped of his emeritus professorship at University of Melbourne for declining to issue corrections to the many serious inaccuracies in his book, "Heaven and Earth: Global Warming, the Missing Science."

And before anyone accuses me of trying to "shut down debate" by calling for Plimer's dismissal that is not the issue. Plimer is entitled to his opinion. As a scientist he is not entitled to disseminate information he knows to be false. That is a sackable offence in most science departments in self-respecting universities. I suspect the only reason he has not been sacked is because of the political furor it would cause.

However, the misdeeds of individual scientists ON BOTH SIDES notwithstanding, the fact of AGW is no longer in serious doubt. I could just as easily write about:

"..the deniers of AGW have had to cheat, lie, and cherry pick data to cover up the growing mountain evidence that supports AGW."

Leo Lane

I am not debating with you. I was merely trying to correct the impression your previous post could give readers that the Japanese scientific establishment dissented from the consensus view that AGW is real. They don't.

Steven, you make the nonsensical statement: “AGW is no longer in serious doubt”

It has always been in serious doubt because it has no scientific backing for its assertion.

I asked you again for any science which backs the assertion of AGW, and again you fail to supply it.

I know that you cannot, because there is no scientific basis for it.

It is fraudulent to assert AGW, Steven, and you continue to do so.

Repeating the lie, as you do, in the belief that a lie repeated often enough, becomes accepted as the truth, has been shown, in the case of AGW, not to work.

As the polls show, more and more people are becoming aware of the fraud.

Remember when you had people fooled, and the fraud backers published polls all the time?

No polls these days, to show what losers the fraud backers are.

What I hate about minimifidianists (though I love the six "I"s) is their stilted scepticism; the way they reduce a noble station to a species of petty equivocating. As if their "scepticism" was based in anything unbiased or demonstrable. As if they were more than callous little conservatives, wretchedly devoted to a slavish mentality. As if there can be any equivocating about the scale of environmental destruction the human "race" is embarked upon. As if the capitalist juggernaut was defensible in all other respects bar the "innuendos" brought against it by the quaking scientific community--"attempts to prop up our belief by the endorsement of the politician, or the patronizing certificate of the minimifidian man of science"--who are equivocators themselves in their refusal to tell the bald truth about the proposed "action on climate change", endlessly deferred in any case until "the economy picks up". Hilarious! Economic growth is the problem and can never be the cure. As if we didn't all know from history, and our intimate experience with the world, that you can't just dump your sh!t in the streets, the river, or the atmosphere indefinitely without, at the very least, its having a noisome effect. As if their lying, duplicitous sophistries were legitimate in anything but populist rhetoric. That's the minimifidianist--the so-called sceptic!

Geez, there are some weirdos here; Squeers takes the cake; what sanctimonious claptrap; misanthropy is misanthropy no matter how many sesquipedalisms you use to dress up your pretensions.

AGW has been disproved; it is a failed theory; and the likes of the Climate Commission and its guns for hire mouthing the usual alarmism won't change that.

And neither will petty little articles like this.

<<Geez, there are some weirdos here>>

I hope that's the case - better that than deliberate attempt to make us stop wasting our time here and quit this thread in disgust.

A similar attempt to chase away opponents is by positing that "AGW is no longer in serious doubt":

Does anyone, after reading this thread, still doubt that there are those among us who doubt AGW?
Otherwise, claiming that AGW is [in doubt but] not in SERIOUS doubt is logically equivalent to claiming that those here who do not believe in AGW are not serious people, an ad-hominem attack.

Every so-called bit of proof of AGW has been lied about or exaggerated in some way; take the latest canard, that Hurricane Sandy was due to AGW. The Climate Commission claimed that Sandy was made worse due to warming Sea Surface Temperatures over the area covered by Sandy:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/sandy-worsened-by-climate-change-report/story-fn3dxiwe-1226509537406

This is a complete lie:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/05/an-inconvenient-truth-sea-surface-temperature-anomalies-along-sandys-track-havent-warmed-in-70-years/#comment-1137128

Thanks cohenite. I was going to mention the facts about Sandy & water temperature.

It is this wild grabbing at any disaster, & trying to twist them to claim it's all CO2 really proves the fact that the warmists have nothing to support their theory.

Unfortunately when bare faced lies like the claim that ocean temperature caused the damage are the stock in trade of warmists, we are left with just 2 possible assumptions.

One that they are so stupid they can't do the research to find the facts, or two, they know that the AGW is disproved, but will lie & cheat to try to keep it alive

The fact that any one can pull up this information themselves with just a click of a mouse leaves the supporters with no where to go. If they look at it, it proves their heroes are liars. If they don't it proves they all ready know that, but don't want to confirm the fact.

If any of our warmests want to be taken seriously again, they must face this evidence, & answer the charge against their heroes.

When I asked, in a thread how such a mild cyclone could do such damage, one fool suggested I was trying to play down warming as the reason. I guess it runs with the point of view.

Kudos for the swagger, boys,

Shame about the lack of scientific substance.

Oh well.......

Well Poirot, give us some substance, rather than just smart chat.

You know where to find the substance, Hasbeen...but according to you, the people who are qualified to provide it are all frauds.

OBAMA ! OBAMA ! OBAMA !

I had been thinking about emigrating, then I realised, Christ, where to, it's all one world ?? And then He won ! Fantastic !

FOUR MORE YEARS !

Now: Poirot,

* world temperatures have risen 0.7 degrees in a century. True ? False ?

* sea-levels have risen somewhere between 2 and 6 inches in a century. Wow. True ? False ?

* Extreme weather-events are about as common now as they have been for a century or more, perhaps effectively, forever. True ? False ?

Please try - if you feel inclined - to confront those issues, without side-tracking, ad homineming, or otherwise sliding away from the issues. Or, as you have the right in a democratic society, keep contributing without actually writing anything with teeth. Let us know if you do, and we can ignore you.

It's your choice :)

Cheers,

Joe

Thank heavens, Obama finally mentioned The Climate, in his victory speech: "America... threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet."
Whatever the AGW doubters say or think - and they are perfectly entitled to their doubts and questions, within the bounds of rationality and human courtesy - business, industry, politics, finance and the mainstream elements of society worldwide are all now taking precautions against man-made climate change.
Saying "it isn't happening" or "it's all lies" will not prevail against collective human commonsense.
The US silent majority has spoken.

JulianC wrote:

>>Thank heavens, Obama finally mentioned The Climate, in his victory speech: "America... threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet."

[...]

The US silent majority has spoken.>>

reality check:

I very much doubt that AGW was a major factor for most voters.

This sounds like wishful thinking on your part.

Full disclosure: As most OLO posters know I have no doubts about the reality of AGW.

Loudmouth,

Regarding extreme events;

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120803_DiceQNA.pdf

(I see you're conforming to style - nothing changes)

Poirot, your unsourced article is by whom?

If Hansen then his conclusions about extreme weather is rebutted here:

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2012/08/14/hansen-is-wrong/

If Mann then he is rebutted here:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/16/quote-of-the-week-what-planet-does-michael-mann-live-on/

But regardless even a cursory look at your link reveals it to be nonsense; the statistical basis for its conclusions are flawed; it is flawed because its period of reference for comparing subsequent hot summers is the period of 1951-1980.

Poirot's article says this 1951-1980 was a period of a "stable global climate"; this is wrong. It was a period of particularly cold and wet La Nina domination which ended abruptly in the Great Climate Shift of 1976.

Because 1951-80 was predominantly cold and wet any summers in the following El Nino period from 1976 to ~ 1998 would appear hotter by comparison.

In addition running mean fallacy explains why all the periods in the modern era still show warmer summers despite the temperature not rising for 15 years.

Grow up Poirot or at least learn basic statistics. You are being conned by your AGW heroes.

Here's little more, cohenite.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120803_DicePopSci.pdf

I wonder how "grown up" it would be to give you and your rantings more kudos on climate science than this guy? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen.

@ Poirot,

<<I wonder how "grown up" it would be to give you and your rantings more kudos on climate science than this guy? [ie James Hansen]>>

And the best (most telling) part of all that kudos heaped on Hansen was this little comment by Freeman Dyson:
“The person who is really responsible for this overestimate of global warming is Jim Hansen. He consistently exaggerates all the dangers... Hansen has turned his science into ideology.”

"Hansen has turned his science into ideology"!

Poirot

FYI

HANSEN

In 1988 Hansen testified on global warming before the US Congress. He predicted a run of unusually hot summers in Washington DC, Omaha, Memphis and New York.

Twenty-four years later, how has he done?

He under-estimated the number and intensity of heat waves in Washington and NY and overestimated for Memphis. Omaha had a run of unusually cool summers.

Overall his mark is 2.5 out of four. That puts him streets ahead of economic forecasters. It was also, in the context of what was known in 1988, amazingly prescient.

Source:

The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don't by Nate Silver

http://www.amazon.com/The-Signal-Noise-Predictions-Fail-but/dp/159420411X

Nate Silver also writes the 538 blog which accurately forecast the results of the recent US election weeks in advance.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

Hansen's forecast of dangerous sea level rises is based on the possibility of a collapse of the Greenland ice sheet. I used to think this was unduly alarmist. However as you pointed out Greenland is rapidly losing ice:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20110308.html

Perhaps he's right after all.

I was also sceptical of the "hockey stick" but other researchers seem to confirm it. I think a dispassionate observer would have to say it is PROBABLY APPROXIMATELY correct.

See: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hit-them-with-the-hockey

The reality of AGW does not rest on the hockeystick so I don't think this argument amounts to much.

I think Mann should have dobbed in his friend, Phil Jones but we all make mistakes. In my personal life I've made worse.

DYSON

Dyson is a brilliant scientist. He is not a climatologist. He is entitled to his opinion but I wouldn't put much weight on it.

Most scientists of Dyson's calibre, including Richard Feynman's friend, Murray Gell-Mann, entertain few doubts as to the reality of AGW.

If the deciding factor for anyone is the opinion of distinguished scientists – eg fellows of the Royal Society - AGW wins by a landslide.

Quote: SPQR

>>Minute
To: All the AGW faithful

Neither Feynman nor Gell-Mann are/were “climate scientists”>>

See: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=14179&page=0

Neither is Dyson old son

There is no question that humanity is now a considerable and growing geological force, or that we're affecting climate and ecosystems generally. Nor is there any doubt the effects are "negative", since the vast majority of organisms are not adapted to adjust to the kind of abrupt change we're causing. The fossil record will no doubt one day reflect this decisive shift as on par with other sudden extinction events in Earth's history.
Global warming is only one aspect of the general degradation and imo shouldn't be the focus--as though otherwise the human footprint is benign! Or as if it's ok to vicariously decimate species-diversity, until it affects us! This is an ethical issue as well as about our own survival, indeed more so since we're uniquely adaptable to sudden change. Howevermuch humanity's affected, it'll relocate and survive better than the rest.
A focus on AGW allows minimifidianists to hector and waffle endlessly over the data, which is so complex as to accommodate their spitting scepticisms, and to seduce swathes of the gullible, or merely frightened, to their own cynical worldviews.
So-called denialism is a "popular" movement incited by a few loudmouths, whose arguments have been comprehensively discredited, and whose vested interests have been commonly exposed.
Yet of course the ultimate or accumulating effect on climate can only be predicted and revised as more evidence is gathered and analysed.
I for one don't need any more evidence to acknowledge that humanity is an increasingly destructive force. And no amount of belligerent hemming and hawing over the weather from ignoramuses, while the planet is laid waste, appraises me of anything but their viciousness.

Steven: I think you may be underestimating the electoral impact of a single weather event that has almost inflicted more damage that ALL of the extreme weather events in the US in 2011 put together. For a week prior to the vote, the US media was inundated by Sandy news. The green lobby took full advantage and used it to crank up voter turnout in affected States. Quite a few of the pundits are saying that what was looking like a neck-and-neck race turned Obama's way when Sandy made landfall, and you certainly had prominent figures like Bloomberg throwing their weight on his side over the climate issue.

JulianC

It was never a neck-and-neck race. That was a bit of media spin by innumerate political pundits.

The betting markets like Betfair had Obama as the odds on favourite weeks in advance. In fact I made a bit of money by betting against Romney with some of my Republican (ex?) friends and then betting the other way on Betfair.

To put it another way, I sold Romney short to my (ex?) friends and bought him back cheaply on Betfair giving me a guaranteed profit of $46 whatever the outcome.

Also see my post: Tuesday, 6 November 2012 11:18:02 AM

on

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=14319&page=0

Here's a prediction.

The Republicans will get back the conservative portion of the Latino vote - the 44% that Bush had and that McCain and Romney lost - and win the White House in 2016.

If you look at the Republican blogosphere this morning you will see that most of the pundits realise they lost because they lost the Latinos.

So while the Left basks in the delusion of a "progressive surge" as one Left of centre magazine put it, the Republicans are already planning victory next time.

Squeers' rant is typical of the misanthropism which has come out from under the rock following the junk of AGW 'science'.

Squeers' view of humanity is often given a run at our ABC:

http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/our-abc-green-narrative.html

Squeers would fit right in at the ABC when he says:

"humanity is an increasingly destructive force"

AGW has revealed a pathology within humanity which while similtaneously claiming a moral superiority and personal exemption from the preceived defects in the rest adopts a 'the result justifies the means' approach to achieving its aims.

That those aims are inchoate and contradictory is only the tip of the hypocrisy of the alarmists and misanthropists who worship AGW; the real hypocrisy is that I don't believe the bulk of alarmists really care about 'nature' at all and when the lights do go out will be baying the loudest for the return of their 'creature comforts', whatever the cost to nature or anyone else.

Apart from anything else the corruption of institutions in Australia such as the ABC, CSIRO and the BOM, by the AGW meme will take years to rectify.

It's not misanthropism, cohenite; it's our political/economic system--to which human nature is enthrall--that I'm critical of. This is another common trope trotted out by you and your ilk to change the subject.
What I've said is perfectly true and has nothing to do with hating humanity. I don't see the way humanity is currently organised (farmed) as "essentially" human, merely a caricature.

Nice link, cohenite...in that the climateskepticsparty = Anthony Cox = cohenite.

A wise species would employ moderation in its technological endeavours and would cease polluting its nest to the degree in which it does.

Posters like Squeers can see the unfolding folly of a system sustained by environmental degradation. Our system delivers the creature comforts in abundance to the fortunate few. How many planets would it take to deliver it universally?

Homo sapiens, for all its intelligence, is inherently myopic when it comes to long term sustainability. The "corruption" line is the fallback argument of those who wish to maintain the "status" quo - and the myopia.

Yes Steven the republicans will win the White house, if it is still there. With his record of corruption, he may have sold it, for a peppercorn, to one of his mates.

Even if the White house is still there, It will be looking out at a much reduced US, with Obama's attitude to productive industry.

It will be interesting to watch how destructive he, & the EPA become, now they have another term secured.

So you don't hate humanity Squeers just the best system for social and economic organisation, democratic capitalism, that humanity has ever had; the distinction you attempt to make is very fine.

More people live better lives than at any other time in the human race.

I think Poirot's "polluting its nest" is a red herring.

In fact what the AGW scam has done is relegate REAL pollution issues to the bottom of the heap.

AGW has also changed the criteria for distinguishing what is a pollution; instead of a pollutant being what is destructive to humanity it is now defined as anything which taints pristine nature.

As well as misanthropism AGW has allowed the idea that nature is benevolent and a natural life is better than one that is not to be the dominant criteria for judging humanity.

But none of these emotive and ideological terms are defined except in a negative sense to berate the democratic capitalistic form.

Nature is not benevolent and the reason why more people enjoy better lives today is because humanity has used energy and technology to keep nature at bay.

Steven,

<<Neither Feynman nor Gell-Mann are/were “climate scientists … Neither is Dyson old son>>

Hmmm! I never realized my barbs cut so deep.

Dyson doesn’t have to be a climate scientist –he wasn’t commenting on the “science” but the antics Hansen.

Listen, Steven, you come across as a reasonable guy. And I can see from your comments above about the US election, you're not easy fooled by hype.
You don’t belong on the same side of the house as the maximifidianist coalition of Squeers. Poirot and JulianC.
How about you cross the floor to our side –there’s a few spare seats left and, better to make your move now before the stampede.

This is a post by me to OLO from one year ago. Steven appears to have learnt nothing in the ensuing year.:

“It is not up to the realists to disprove AGW, it is up to the proponents of AGW to produce proof that human emissions have any measurable effect on climate, which so far they have failed to do.

Certainly they have engineered statements from prestigious bodies to the effect that human emissions affect climate, but these statements are unsupported by science.

We need a Royal Commission into how this travesty is brought about. How does it come about that reputable entities issue statements, unsupported by science, and against the wishes of their scientist members?

Remember when the mendacious IPCC announced that AGW was “very likely”, and that this would be borne out when the “hotspot” in the troposphere was demonstrated, which would be the “signature” for AGW?

Of course there has been no “hotspot” shown to exist, no “signature” of the effect of human emissions, and no retraction from the IPCC, whose estimates were obviously far too high, and thus not borne out by the real world.

Everyone knows that, Steven, even you, but it is not sufficient to prevent you from diversions and obfuscations to hide the truth. There is no scientific proof for the assertion that human emissions have an effect on climate which is other than negligible. You are also aware that the onus of proof is on the alarmists who put forward the proposition.

It has been shown, in peer reviewed papers, that climate including current climate, conforms to established natural cycles. This leaves little room for the assertion that human emissions have any measurable effect, and attempts to back the assertion on a scientific basis have failed.

Human emissions of carbon dioxide comprise 3% of the natural CO2 cycle. The CO2 cycle has a 10% natural variation. It is little wonder that the alarmists are unable to demonstrate any effect from the contribution of human emissions, and their dishonest attempts are less than admirable.”

Cohenite,

What you say about modern advances is borne out by this brilliant little article on human mortality through history:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/10/10/1215627109.full.pdf+html

As the article points out, peasants had barely much longer life expectancies than hunter-gatherers, around 40-47 years, but since about the 1840s, i.e. modern industry, increase in life expectancy has risen by about three months for every year - a 'stunningly linear' pattern, as the article suggests - in highly industrialised countries, such as Australia, where life expectancy is around 80-85.

Perhaps Marx was right, and capitalism has played a revolutionary role in - perhaps inadvertently, and surely for its own profit - extending life expectancy, in almost guaranteeing far better health, and thereby extending life-opportunities for billions of people.

The question is: should a sea-level rise of 2-6 inches, and a temperature rise of 0.7 degrees in a century, be the price we pay for an effective doubling of life expectancy ?

I'll let the blow-flies buzz around that one, full of sound and fury but without actually saying anything :)

Best wishes,

Joe

Thanks Joe; the definitive text for me which proves that humankind is improving general living conditions and overcoming the tyranny of nature is Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist.

This is a monumental book, well researched and comprehensive. Lomborg's research not only shows that humanity is doing better today with modern technology prevailing over nature but with progress nature does better than in more primitive, more natural societies.

This is, of course, a massive irony that the AGW supporting nitwits ignore.

Loudmouth says - "Please try - if you feel inclined - to confront those issues, without side-tracking, and ad homineming...."

Your last post was a side-track - and you finished it off with an ad hom...."I'll let the blow-flies buzz around that one..."

All perfectly fine, of course, except "you" always make such a song and dance about such things, giving little lectures and holding yourself aloft, while preemptively admonishing your opponents against such tactics.

(And I like your reference to the doubling of life expectancy, ignoring the fact that it's only extended to the wasteful, opulent West - the West that plunders less fortunate societies)

I'm sure I'm imagining your hypocrisy and that you'll jump straight on the thread to berate your mate cohenite for his ad hominem reference to AGW nitwits.

(But I won't hold my breath : )

Sorry, Poirot, sometimes it's impossible to tell the difference between a nitwit and a blowfly.

Now perhaps we could get back to the issues, and what we can do about them. And I don't mean world dictatorship, a strong Leader who can guide us out of our dire man-made troubles, someone we can surrender our civil rights to, for the greater good, because that sometimes seems to be the sub-text guiding the alarmists.

But no, I'm not holding my breath on that either :)

Cheers,

Joe

Loud mouth,

"...sometimes it's impossible to tell the difference between a nitwit and a blowfly."

(How true)

But let's examine this line from the man who likes to present himself as "Mr No ad hominems, please". Here's a guy who revels in casting aspersions while simultaneously and snidely exhorting his opponents to resist doing the same.

"Now perhaps we can get back to the issue...."

Pray tell? You mean the issue on which I posted two topical links to Hansen's 2012 paper...or do you mean your diversion to discussing life expectancy?

My advice is - if you are going to set yourself up as the arbiter of fair debate on a thread, then you should at least abide by your own dictates.

Here's another link on the waning debate in the media affecting public perceptions regarding climate change:

http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate

Apologies for the delay, cohenite. I'm pressed for time but don't want you to think you've had the best of it.
I'd love to comment at length in response to you and loudmouth on your nitwit triumphalism, but I'll have to confine myself to your last to me.

On your first point; humanity has dogged itself with one tyranny or another since societies formed. Whatever the merits of the current system in such a comparison, there's still surely much to be desired, no?

Poirot's "polluting its nest" comment is perfectly correct, however I already made your point that AGW shouldn't be the focus.

Your other comments are really unworthy of you: semantics about "pollution", as if any but a tiny minority is taking such an extreme view about "pristine nature", or any serious voice sees nature as benevolent. The real danger is that us post-Hobbesians forget we're part of nature. It's one thing to not be romantic about nature, but quite another to think we can be aloof from it, or despise it.
Nature is of course indifferent to us, but we can't be indifferent to it. Even supposing we could, we have an ethical and aesthetic duty not to wantonly destroy it.
In short I pre-empted you above when I condemned such "lying, duplicitous sophistries" as you've indulged in since.

I do condemn the democratic capitalist form, but not for ideological reasons. I see through the ideology that "you" are so enamoured of: that capitalism in any form is destructive and dehumanising, and that "democracy" entailed upon it is nothing of the kind.
Like I also said above, "callous little conservatives, wretchedly devoted to a slavish mentality".
Apparently you're not even a progressive.
You might impress some with your "emotive and ideological terms", but I see through them.

Re Poirot’s link to the Naomi Klein article in The Nation

The best thing about Poirot’s link to Naomi Klein’s little rant is this admission:

<< The deniers did not decide that climate change is a left-wing conspiracy by uncovering some covert socialist plot. They arrived at this analysis by taking a hard look at what it would take to lower global emissions as drastically and as rapidly as climate science [read AGW activists] demand[s]…Here’s my inconvenient truth: they aren’t wrong>>.

[remember that is Naomi Klein speaking –not Andrew Bolt]

The second best thing about that link is the incongruity (and high comedy) of a movement who according to Poirot has taken a stand against <<greed and rapaciousness>> running banner ads for wrinkle creams , IKEA ,the latest Mitsubishi Pajero and designer T Shirts.

ROFLAO

Well, Poirot, as Paul Keating said, the dogs keep barking but the caravan moves on.

The issues: world temperature (0.7 degree in 100 years), sea-level rise (2-6 inches in 100 years), rapidly-growing pollution of air, waterways, soil, deforestation, etc., depletion of world fisheries - is that enough to go on ?

But why on earth consider that a world dictatorship to 'fix' these problems would be socialist ? Surely, it would be as fascist as they come ? Mind you, in practice, there hasn't been all that much difference, and I write as a life-long socialist, from birth.

But the last sixty or seventy years of experience has surely forced any decent socialists to re-think ? That there must be something better than BOTH democracy chained to capitalism, AND socialism as it's been practiced up until now ? A socialism built on the best principles of democracy, for a start.

So, yes, there are issues to discuss, besides our petty sensitivities, Poirot.

But keep barking if it makes you feel better :)

Cheers,

Joe

Squeers says:

"as if any but a tiny minority is taking such an extreme view about "pristine nature", or any serious voice sees nature as benevolent."

Google gaia Squeers and list the notables who think gaia is not just a symbol of the Earth but the Earth and that humans are the beneficiaries of 'mother' gaia.

Squeers, your view is similar to the Greens:

http://greens.org.au/policies/environment/environmental-principles

Let me ask you, who determines what is a sustainable lifestyle and what measures do you endorse to enforce your notion of a sustainable lifestyle. As a corrollary do you agree with what Jorgen Randers says about sustainability:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/this-is-as-good-as-it-gets-says-visionary-20121105-28u4m.html

Randers supports:

''eco-dictatorship'' in the form of a global executive body with the authority to tell nations how much greenhouse gas they are permitted to emit."

In his book, Limits to Growth 11 Randers says:

"A WORLD with "enough" would) aim for an average industrial output per capita of $350 per person per year - about the equivalent of that in South Korea, or twice the level of Brazil in 1990 ... If this hypothetical society could also reduce military expenditures and corruption, a stabilised economy with an industrial output per capita of $350 would be equivalent in material comforts to the average level in Europe in 1990."

William Nordhaus said this about Randers:

"THIS astonishing passage (on a world with "enough") is one of the few recommendations in Limits II that can be held up to the light of statistical analysis ... the factual predicates of the recommendation are so faulty that one wonders whether Limits II is referring to another planet ... The Limits II proposals would limit our material aspirations to attaining the living standards of Somalia or Chad. At these income levels, to purchase Limits II would take a month's wages. ... The LTG prescription would save the planet at the expense of its inhabitants."

Loudmouth,

90 percent of your post is strawman (as usual).

If you insist on employing this strategy, then I'm happy to continue to ignore it: )

"But keep barking if it makes you feel better."

I can see your hypocritical stance on posting etiquette is still going strong...and if someone happens to point out your double standards, suddenly they're appealing to petty sensitivities.

SPQR,

So Klein worked out the reason for denialists vehemence - they see a threat to the status quo. Wow - what a surprise!

Excellent post, Squeers : )

cohenite,

The concept of Gaia, as Lovelock conceived it, seems perfectly reasonable to me, not as an article of faith, but as a way of viewing the world and for all practical purposes.

sorry I can't comment at length on your sources, but whatever their short-comings, or the excoriations proposed, our system, based on its rapacious use of limited resources, destructiveness and endless expansion in a closed system, is definitively insane.
You might celebrate the current state of affairs, but even supposing it was "democratic" in any meaningful sense (though it's not), it's patently unsustainable.

However, adieu.

SPQR writes:

>>Listen, Steven, you come across as a reasonable guy. And I can see from your comments above about the US election, you're not easy fooled by hype.
You don’t belong on the same side of the house ….>>

You've asked a reasonable question and I shall try and give a reasonable answer.

First, I cannot begin to describe how much it pains me to be on the same side as the slimy self-righteous Greens on any issue.

They're loathsome!

The Greens leadership consists largely of recycled Stalinists and their acolytes.

And don't get me started on Naomi Klein or that ABC popinjay Garnaut!

It may surprise you to know that most of the actual climatologists I know perceive the Greens as part of the problem.

But what you are suggesting is that I change my mind on a SCIENTIFIC issue because of the PERSONALITIES of some of the people who purport to believe in AGW. That's like asking me to reject photo-electric theory - and the whole of quantum mechanics - because Philipp Lenard, the Nobel-prize-winning experimental physicist whose brilliant experiments established the facts about photo-electricity, was an early supporter of Hitler.

By all accounts Isaac Newton was a mean spirited, nasty, backstabbing intellectual thug. Is that a reason to reject Newtonian dynamics?

Galileo was apparently bombastic and arrogant. Even when he was demonstrably wrong – e.g. his theory of tides – his response was to attack his critics rather than rebut their arguments. He sounds like an early James Hansen. Do we go back to believing in a stationary Earth because of Galileo's personal shortcomings?

Here's the reality. If it turned out that James Hansen moonlighted as a serial killer it would make no difference to the validity or otherwise of his scientific work.

Scientists rarely get all the detail of a complex issue right the first time. Copernicus' astronomy did not match observation because he got an important detail wrong; planets do not follow circular orbits. Do we go back to a geocentric theory because the first effort got some details wrong?

Cont'd below

A few points:

--I deplore the fact that so many really awful people have hijacked a scientific ISSUE, AGW, and turned it into a CAUSE which they use to advance their totalitarian agenda. But it does not affect the underlying science.

--The science underpinning AGW and the policy responses are separate issues. The reality of AGW does not mean embracing Australia's carbon tax or joining the Gillard groupies.

--The thousands of climatologists working on AGW are mostly not fools, are mostly honest and are not engaged in a conspiracy or scam. Nor are the leaders of the world's premier scientific bodies, all of which have warned about the dangers posed by AGW, fools. If you truly believe all these scientists are engaged in a "scam" you are in the same class as the "birthers" who purport to believe Obama was not born a US citizen.

With that out of the way here are the facts.

--Given some basic physics plus what we know about the dynamics of the world's climate system it would be rather astonishing if adding CO2 to the atmosphere did not result in global warming. In fact if we did not observe a warming trend we'd have a lot of explaining to do.

--Broadly speaking, and with many exceptions, the planet is responding in a way that is consistent with AGW.

--Can we be certain what we observe is due to AGW and not some natural climatic variation? No we can't but the preponderance of evidence points in that direction.

We are roughly where heliocentric astronomy was in 1543 when Copernicus published his magnum opus. The framework looks right but there's still a lot of detail to fill in.

Personal attacks on scientists, allegations of a vast conspiracy, the parasites (ie the Greenies) who have attached themselves to this issue, cherry picking bits of data here and there, quotes from some distinguished scientists who dissent, the self-righteousness of Julia Gillard, none of these alter the science.

Nor do our personal preferences have any impact on the laws of physics.

Great post Steven, thank you. However I have to try to tear it apart.

I'm afraid the whole thing can be called a referral to authority. The only reasons you give me are;

1/ That thousands of climatologists are all good blokes.

2/ That the theory of CO2 behaviour, as they & you see it, leaves no other thing to believe.

Not really anything to prove anything mate. It really is like saying stomach ulcers "MUST" be due to worry, because we can't find anything else to explain them. Group think is a worrying thing, it would probably give me ulcers, if I were the worrying type.

All that stuff about the people involved is a bit irrelevant, if you are looking at what is said, & not by whom it is said. Hell I'm so dyslexic I can't remember who wrote a paper, even I'm just half way through it. I can however, remember what was said even years later, which is the important thing really. It means I consider the subject, not the author.

I have seen two papers now, [no I don't keep references, the computer crashes too often], that suggest adding CO2 to the atmosphere displaces water vapor. If this is the case, CO2 would be a cooling influence. The evidence for this, obtained by experiment, is actually stronger than anything obtained to support CO2's warming, except that it "just must".

There is also plenty of genuine evidence to show that convection has much more effect than radiation in cooling, & add in evaporation, & radiation becomes the country cousin in the cooling of the earth.

So sorry mate, I'm with SPQR when he says he's surprised you can't see the scam.

Steven,

Yes, good post.

I take your point on"In-your-face" AGW supporters like Klein, et al - but really, what do you do if corporate and media elites hold sway on the dissemination of science and opinion? In the end, movements form presenting both sides of the argument. That's how humans do it.

And then we have the "skeptics" like Loudmouth constantly spouting the same line about sea rise and temperature rise as if these are static entities and not part of an interconnected web of cause and effect, of which he knows very little - and ignores time after time the links that are provided explaining the intricacies far better than I could. He appears convinced that it's either a socialist or fascist plot - and apparently there's no threat when all he can see is his "0.7 degrees in 100 years/2-6 inches in 100 years"....which he trots out time and again as if it's a game changer.

Steven - in the end if someone like you has faith in the scientists to "honestly" do their best, what happens when denialists call it scam, when certain sections of the media run with that line, when it's extremely difficult for fortunate humans to back off from their rampant consumerism in favour of a lighter footprint, when they're encouraged to doubt the scientists and to blow a raspberry at their sense and conscience because "it's easier" to believe it's all a fraud.

What do you do?...People like Naomi Klein at least have the eloquence to get the message across to ears that would be happier not to hear it.

Back again, steven, still with no science to show any measurable effect of human emissions on climate. You say the empty words’ the science underpinning AGW”.

What science is that, Steven? In your chatty little post you make no mention of it. Being “astonished” if it doesn’t exist, is not science, just a peculiarity you have.

Why not have a look at Murry Salby’s research? When validated it will disprove AGW conclusively.

“Salby’s argument is that the usual evidence given for the rise in CO2 being man-made is mistaken. It’s usually taken to be the fact that as carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere increase, the 1 per cent of CO2 that’s the heavier carbon isotope ratio c13 declines in proportion. Plants, which produced our coal and oil, prefer the lighter c12 isotope. Hence, it must be our gasses that caused this relative decline.

But that conclusion holds true only if there are no other sources of c12 increases which are not human caused. Salby says there are – the huge increases in carbon dioxide concentrations caused by such things as spells of warming and El Ninos, which cause concentration levels to increase independently of human emissions. He suggests that its warmth which tends to produce more CO2, rather than vice versa – which, incidentally is the story of the past recoveries from ice ages”.

As to your assertion that AGW is established fact you might consider this scientist’s comment:

“Anyone who thinks the science of this complex thing is settled is in Fantasia.”

http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/04/carbon-cycle-questions/

Scientists are deserting the sinking ship of AGW in their thousands, Steven, why not join them and stop making a fool of yourself.

If I was a Green I'd resent being called "slimy", "self-righteous" and "loathsome". I don't even use that kind of language for minimifidianists, who are much more deserving.
Any sensible person has at least some sympathy for a Green thinking, whatever that means.
I admire scientists too, but they're advocates for the State by default; otherwise they'd be coming out and saying that market-based solutions can never work. Tim Flannery is accordingly one Green whose position I despise.

Hasbeen old son,

Let's have a reality check here.

Firstly, like you I'm a hasbeen or, if you like, these days I'm an armchair scientist. I still have a lot of friends and acquaintances in the scientific field and we talk a lot, preferably while sipping the Glenfiddich. I've kept up my subscriptions to the various scientific publications. Occasionally someone has a student who needs help with statistics and if it's on a topic that interests me I volunteer my time. But I am not in a position to bring you the results of any field work.

Secondly it is not realistic to ask me to explain what is known about an extraordinarily complex topic on a discussion board in 350 words! I cannot offer a concise proof of AGW in the sense that I can prove Pythagoras' theorem.

Finally all I can rely on is peer reviewed evidence that others have gathered. If in your heart of hearts you believe AGW is a beat up perpetrated by idiots who cannot "work out the change from $10 for a bus ticket" then you will discount any evidence, in the form of published papers that I cite. So what's the point?

Here's the reality. There is nothing that it is feasible for me to produce on a discussion board that will satisfy you. No offence intended but I have a feeling that's the way it is.

All that being said I will offer the following:

For an understanding of the physics underpinning AGW I recommend

Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast by David Archer

See: http://www.amazon.com/Global-Warming-Understanding-David-Archer/dp/0470943416

The book is divided into two parts. The first part, which explains the physics, is excellent and largely uncontroversial. The second part, which looks at the evidence, is now a bit dated.

To get a feel for the evidence browse the Scientific American website.

You might also browse the realclimate.org blog

But, once again, if you think they're all a bunch of crooks morons what's the point?

Squeers

A correction:

I wrote:

"…that ABC popinjay Garnaut!"

I meant to write:

"…that ABC popinjay FLANNERY!"

For the rest see my post addressed to Hasbeen

Leo Lane

LOL

If you truly believe "Scientists are deserting the sinking ship of AGW in their thousands" then you are delusional. It ain't happening.

NB: When I say "scientist" I mean someone who actually does research and publishes in peer reviewed journals; not merely someone with a science degree. I have science degrees but would not consider myself a scientist.

I have not said the science is "settled" because nothing in science is ever settled.

Here's what I actually wrote:

>>Can we be certain what we observe is due to AGW and not some natural climatic variation? No we can't but the preponderance of evidence points in that direction.>>

What evidence you say?

See my post addressed to Hasbeen.

You might also look at the IPCC reports. Yes they have had some bloopers but, when these were pointed out, they were withdrawn. This is in marked contrast to Plimer who continues to punt his error ridden book. (And "error ridden" is putting it kindly)

Again, no offence intended, but I suspect that there is nothing it would be feasible to produce on a discussion board that would convince you.

Hasbeen again:

>>There is also plenty of genuine evidence to show that convection has much more effect than radiation in cooling, & add in evaporation, & radiation becomes the country cousin in the cooling of the earth.>>

Again, no offence intended but this is irrelevant. Convection and evaporation are near-surface effects. Convection redistributes heat – eg from equatorial regions to the poles. Evaporative cooling at the surface is counterbalanced by the release of latent heat when the vapour condenses back into liquid form.

Neither has any effect on the overall heat balance of the planet which is purely a matter of radiation. This graphic illustrates the earth's radiation budget. The actual numbers are out of date but it demonstrates the principle.

http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/images/earth_rad_budget_kiehl_trenberth_big.gif

stevenlmeyer refers to the Keihl and Trenberth cartoon purporting to show the radiative fluxes on earth and therein the proof of AGW; steven is VERY out of date and the K&T cartoon has been disproved:

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n10/abs/ngeo1580.html

>>This graphic illustrates the earth's radiation budget. The actual numbers are out of date but it demonstrates the principle.<<

The principle that incoming solar radiation (at 342 watts per square metre) is neatly balanced by outgoing radiation (reflected solar radiation and outgoing longwave radiation at 107 and 235 watts per square metre respectively)? That doesn't leave any watts for warming.

Where is the energy to heat the planet coming from if the incoming solar radiation is in balance with the outgoing radiation?

Cheers,

Tony

@ Squeers (& fellow maximifidianists)

<<If I was a Green I'd resent being called "slimy", "self-righteous" and "loathsome". I don't even use that kind of language for minimifidianists, who are much more deserving.>>

If I were a Green and I had sold out OZ on border control, undermined OZ industries with phony CO2 protocols, and was seeking to cede away OZ sovereignty to the UN, I would think that I got off rather lightly being labeled with the above epitaphs.

On the other hand, I would expect my maximifidianists allies --who harbour an even bigger lobe of the qualities described in the (abovementioned) epitaphs --to express their moral indignation at the use of such terms.

"Slimy, self-righteous, loathsome, nitwit, idiot and blowflies" are just some of the terms resorted to by denialists.

It's as if they somehow believe the can simply "abuse away" the science.

@Poirot,

<<It's as if [denialists”] somehow believe the can simply "abuse away" the science.
Posted by Poirot, Saturday, 10 November 2012 8:30:53 AM>>

Yes, and the believers are as puuuuuuuuuuure as driven snow.

You have this endearing one-eyed quality –which totalitarian regimes would pay trillions to clone --where you are totally incapable of seeing the errors & abuse of your own side.

It aint about science versus anti-science –never was.
It’s about people like you and Naomi (hide the de)Klien
who are seeking to use science to further their own narrow political agendas.

Sorry, SPQR?

At least those arguing on the side of moderation have broad scientific agreement on their side...the key word there is "moderation"......as opposed to totally dismissing the conclusions of climate scientists.

And the likes of Heartland have no political agenda?

Pull the other one.

steven, consider Maurice Newman, in his article a few days ago, where he said:

“Regrettably for the global warming religion, its predictions have started to appear shaky, and the converts, many of whom have lost their jobs and much of their wealth, are losing faith. Worse, heretic scientists have been giving the lie to many of the prophecies described in the IPCC bible. They could not be silenced.”

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/losing-their-religion-as-evidence-cools-off/story-e6frgd0x-1226510184533

Does it not concern you that you are backing barefaced liars, steven, did you not read the Climategate emails, and see the unethical, unprincipled approach of the AGW backing miscreants?

A sensible comment on this disgraceful debacle was made in very moderate terms by Professor Lindzen who says: “Claims that the earth has been warming, that there is a Greenhouse Effect, and that man’s activity have contributed to warming are trivially true but essentially meaningless.”

He said our natural body temperature varies by eight tenths of a degree.

He showed a Boston newspaper weather graphic for a day – it had the actual temperature against a background of the highest and lowest recorded temperature for that day. The difference was as much as 60 degrees F.

I dealt with your science deficient post to hasbeen, steven. As I say, you have learnt nothing in the past year since I pointed out the deficiency in your assertion of the fraud-based AGW.
Fortunately, many scientists in the last year have become free of the illusion. Fritz Varenholt, previously a leading warmist said in an article a few months ago:

“Recent experience with the UN's climate panel, however, forced me to reassess my position. In February 2010, I was invited as a reviewer for the IPCC report on renewable energy. I realised that the drafting of the report was done in anything but a scientific manner. The report was littered with errors and a member of Greenpeace edited the final version. These developments shocked me. I thought, if such things can happen in this report, then they might happen in other IPCC reports too.”

Of course they did.

Leo Lane,

I found this article on Vahrenholt's claims:

http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/fritz-vahrenholt-interview-european-energy-review-die-kalte-sonne/#more-2221

On the subject of expert reviewers of IPCC reports...apparently Lord Monckton thinks he's qualified also:

http://www.readfearn.com/2012/11/lord-moncktons-new-climate-role-for-the-ipcc-isnt-what-it-appears/

Poirot,

<<At least those arguing on the side of moderation ...the key word there is "moderation">>

Moderation, you say?
How can this be called moderation?

"The deniers did not decide that climate change is a left-wing conspiracy by uncovering some covert socialist plot. They arrived at this analysis by taking a hard look at what it would take to lower global emissions as drastically and as rapidly as climate science demands. They have concluded that this can be done only by RADICALLY REORDERING OUR ECONOMIC AND POLITIC SYSTEMS in ways antithetical to their 'free market' belief system... HERE’S MY INCONVENIENT TRUTH: THEY ARE NOT WRONG”
[Naomi Klein]

"Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection, says the German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer. The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated.
[Ottmar Edenhofer ( co-chair of the IPCC Working Group III)]

<<as opposed to totally dismissing the conclusions of climate scientists>>

Everyone agrees that climate changes. Sometimes it trends colder, sometime it trends warmer
The question is: is what we are seeing due to that *3%* of CO2 attributable to anthropogenic sources?

<<And the likes of Heartland have no political agenda?>>
The Heartland institute is one small voice in a crowd of rowdy well funded, well connected, well up-themselves AGW lobby groups.
Personally, I don’t think I’ve ever read or seen a Heartland publication.

<<Pull the other one>>

And here you have identified another characteristic of true AGW believers -- they seem to spend a lot or their spare time, pulling the other one.

Just to recap:

* world temperatures have risen by 0.7 degree in a century, and not really all that much over the last fifteen years - true ? false ?

* sea-level has risen around the world by up to six inches in a century - true ? false ?

* urbanisation - and the urban heat-island effect - have increased massively, perhaps ten times or more, in the last century, and many temperature-measuring stations are situated near what are now urban areas - true ? false ?

God, I'm such a boring, repetitive b@stard (Sorry to stick to the data, Poirot, empty abuse is so much more fun, isn't it? But when you've got nothing much to say, and no answers, abuse).

Cheers :)

Joe

Loudmouth,

Your dinky little sentences presuppose that climate scientists somehow neglect to include such data and considerations in their investigations and conclusions. You seem to think that with your minor knowledge on such things, it's all so very simple.

As for the urban heat island effect - are you claiming that scientists ignore this phenomenon - or TOB's or anything like that?

Please feel free to link to any instance where I have abused you on this thread. For example, I haven't referred to you as a blowfly or a nitwit or invited you to keep on barking.

Cheers.

SPQR,

By "moderation" I was referring to backing off from our rapacious use of resources and our wasteful lifestyles.

Poirot, I don't think I've called you a nitwit yet. But let's face it, you do not say anything, merely buzz around.

Yes, you're right, I certainly have little knowledge about any of this - that's why I keep asking questions, the same questions, because nobody answers.

What turned me into a 'sceptic', as you call it (which I always thought was a honorable stance for someone who respects science, but what do I know?) was reading about a weather station in the northen Antarctic, near South America, which originally was just a shed out in the snow and ice. But in the last thirty years, it has been joined by a nearby airfield, which is tarred and kept free of snow, absorbing heat nicely, and also is now surrounded by living quarters. Yet its readings were still being incorporated into the database. Of course, horrors ! it registered rising temperatures.

As long as I hear of such things, I hope I remain a sceptic. And a socialist.

And why does anyone think that the AGW scam and world government is solely a 'socialist' phenomenon - I always assume that it's a massive capitalist plot, to make a buck out of switching technologies, and to move towards a more fascist-controlled world, dominated by neo-capitalism. It all seems pretty obvious to me. Of course, if all of this IS a socialist plot, then I'll kiss that good-bye, quick-smart.

To get back to the AGW scam, Poirot: if you wish to assert, you must prove. Good luck.

Cheers :)

Joe

Loudmouth,

"...the AGW scam..."

Ho, ho - if you're a true skeptic (as opposed to a "skeptic"), then I'm really Hercule Poirot.

Cheers : )

It seems PriceWaterhouseCoopers has weighed in on this discussion: they are in no doubt that anthropogenic climate change will be both a phsyical and an economic catastrophe. http://t.co/NxiVkBdF

For those who consider AGW is correct and that fossil fuels should be replaced with cleaner technologies, should they prove wrong the world loses only a source of pollution but gains new industries and jobs. They are pro-growth. Most industries and governments now share this view.

Those who relentlessly deny AGW and oppose any form of action are evidently willing to gamble with the lives of their grandchildren, the future civilisation and the global economy. If they are wrong, billions of people will suffer.

There is no obligation for society to pay any heed whatsoever to the opinions of people so callous and devoid of humanity

In case you have not noticed Julian, billions of people are suffering now.

Despite the increased CO2 in the atmosphere giving record crops, the world is faced with famine brought about by the allocation of crop growing land to the growing of crops for biofuel.

The UN calls it a “crime against humanity”. Who committed the crime? The UN by its backing of the AGW fraud, which caused those in government to subsidise growing of crops for biofuel.

This caused a food shortage, and also has economic consequences in the waste of taxpayer funds allocated to perpetrating this travesty.

This is just a sample of the damage that the AGW fraud has wrought. This fraud has the backing of fuzzy thinkers like Julian.

Hi Julian,

Price Waterhouse Coopers is an underwriting firm, isn't that right ? They underwrite insurance companies' activities, a sort of insurance company of last resort ?

And given the rock-solid truth of AGW, insurance companies are going to have to reluctantly put up insurance premiums on everything, isn't that so ?

I'm glad that we can rest peacefully in our beds, knowing that major capitalist firms are doing their bit against this scourge of AGW while we sleep, and from the purest of motives.

Joe :)